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ISBN listings

Red Ink

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"Sometimes lies are safer than the truth"

About the book

Sometimes lies are safer than the truth

When her mother is knocked down and killed by a London bus, fifteen-year-old Melon Fouraki is left with no family worth mentioning. Her mother, Maria, never did introduce Melon to a 'living, breathing' father. The indomitable Auntie Aphrodite, meanwhile, is hundreds of miles away on a farm in Crete, and is unlikely to be jumping on a plane and coming to East Finchley anytime soon. But at least Melon has 'The Story'. 'The Story' is the Fourakis family fairytale. A story is something. RED INK is a powerful coming-of-age tale about superstition, denial and family myth.

Extract

The tube train clatters into the station, shouting down the silence and whipping my hair across my face. The current of air makes the boys' fringes do the Mexican wave. They're rooted to the spot, looking at their feet. The doors stop right in front of me and the doors nearest to the boys will take them onto the same carriage. I expect them to move along to another bit of the train, but that would mean acknowledging that they've seen me. Too embarrassing.

The doors open. We all get on to an empty carriage.

"Mind the gap."

That's where I am right now, in the gap. Please mind the gap between the death of your mother and the edge of normal.

The doors close. I sit down. Only when the train hiccups into life do I dare check where they are. They're on the seats by the glass panel at the end of the carriage. They're looking at me now, but they're not saying anything. I'm in the middle of the train, another two glass panels of protection away. I won't need it though. They're not going to do the thing with my name. I can feel the pity oozing off them, although they're grudging about it at the same time. Mum dying has spoiled their game. Murray gives me a soppy look, Dylan nods. It feels like being patted on the head by an old relative. The train clangs into the dark of the tunnel. This is the weirdest thing to say but, I actually preferred it when the boys took the piss.

Letter from the editor

As a teenager who scoured the works of Edna O'Brien and Lynne Reid Banks, RED INK brought back the powerful sense of wonder and wariness I had then of the adult life before me, and the often painful but joyful experience of relationships. Julie Mayhew's adolescent heroine Melon is coming to terms with the death of her glamorous and flighty mother, clinging to her mum's stories of her idyllic childhood in Greece. But as this exquisite and acute story unravels Melon finds herself mourning something else altogether and discovering the brutal truth about everything she believed in. This is a story about stories and the harm and happiness they can bring in equal measure. Stunning writing from a mesmerising author.